This Is What You Get For Saying That Word
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash, oneshot. Well, how was he supposed to know that calling Granger what she was would make Harry that angry?


**Title: **This Is What You Get For Saying That Word

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Rating: **R/M.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione.

**Warnings: Ignores Deathly Hallows completely. **There is sex, exhibitionism, language, hints of D/s, and Draco being a pretty much _unmitigated_ prat.

**Summary: **Well, how was _he_ supposed to know that calling Granger what she was would make Harry that angry?

**Notes: **Written as a gift fic for oops-in-the-apt. Her request was: _submissive!Draco, set at a very formal party, with 'accidental' exhibitionism._ Happy birthday, and I hope this answers the request!

**This Is What You Get For Saying That Word**

"Be ready."

Harry breathed the words into his ear as they entered Blackthorn Manor, putting Draco on his guard at once. He turned around to question his lover, but Harry had already slipped past him and extended his hand to their host, the elderly pure-blood witch Diana Blackthorn. She accepted it with a faint smile and an inclination of her head that was practically the equivalent of leaping up and down in place and clapping her hands, given her class. Draco knew the Blackthorns still considered the Malfoys, who had been in England since the Norman Conquest, newcomers; the first ancestor of the line to bear the Blackthorn name had supposedly been a compatriot of Merlin.

That made Draco all the more painfully suspicious. Harry had worked calmly, patiently, via letter and introduction and other parties, to get this invitation for months. He knew—even Draco, who barely cared, knew—that Diana Blackthorn's monetary support was necessary to create a nation-wide system of schools for Mudblood children to be introduced to the wizarding world as soon as they manifested signs of magic. Why would Harry risk the support he could win here just to play a game with Draco?

And yet, the "be ready" phrase usually signified…

Well.

Draco felt his face burn and forbore to rub his arse only because he was in company. He sauntered towards one of the tables of fabulously expensive food instead, trying simultaneously to keep an eye on Harry and review his actions of the past day in his mind. There must be _something_ he had done that Harry could take offense at.

Nothing occurred to him, even as he watched Harry exchanging greetings with Diana's young great-niece, Helena, spoken of openly as the Blackthorn heir apparent. Helena wore white dress robes that sparkled softly with silver crescent moons, so stiff she could barely move in them. She was only sixteen, but already on the marriage market, if Draco remembered the meaning of her dress robes correctly. Those moons and that color invoked a tradition of pre-marital chastity maintained only in the oldest wizarding families.

Harry touched his lips to Helena's hand, and Diana Blackthorn's smile flickered briefly into a smirk. Draco narrowed his eyes. Just because Harry hadn't foresworn women completely didn't mean he could be charmed away from Draco.

Draco thought so, anyway.

He frowned and again tried to remember the events of the past day. Or maybe even the past _week_, because for the past day he had performed beautifully, attending to all the duties of his job as a minor paper-pusher in the Ministry and returning home early to get dressed for the party. Harry had graced him with one of those breathtaking stares when he came to fetch Draco for the Apparition, which meant that the dark gray-blue robes had done their work.

Harry was chatting quietly with Augusta Longbottom, who apparently could wear normal clothes on occasion. Draco lifted his wineglass to hide his smirk, in case someone took it for an insult aimed at old Mrs. Longbottom. No, the last day he had been perfection itself.

And last night, at that little party that had included Harry's friends—

Draco felt his stomach turn as cold as the rain they'd forged through on their way to Lady Blackthorn's door.

No. _No_. It really _couldn't_ have been that—could it?

He swallowed twice, and that still didn't ease the tightening ache in his throat. The dinner had gone well enough at first. The Weasel had eyed Draco dubiously when he came through the door, as always, and then stared at Harry as if he expected to see the glow of a spell Draco had used to enchant him. Granger was insufferably cordial, and tried to shake his hand. Draco usually managed to get out of touching her, but couldn't when Harry was watching him. So he put up with it, convincing his grimace to play a smile, and then vanished into the loo to scrub his fingers hard for several minutes before dinner began.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

He started and glanced sideways. He hadn't noticed Diana Blackthorn coming towards him, which was strange in itself; the brocade of her dress robes ought to have rustled around her as if she were a troop of Muggles trying to force their way through the Forbidden Forest. He made up for his startlement as best as he could by issuing one of the compliments his mother had taught him. "Next to your radiance, Lady Blackthorn, we are all eclipsed."

"You flatter my name more than you do me, Mr. Malfoy." Blackthorn offered her hand, but didn't flutter her eyelids and coo the way Narcissa would have while he kissed her fingers. "Tell me, because I have always been curious: What is it like, living with Mr. Potter?"

_An alternation of pain and pleasure so keen it almost wrecks me, _Draco longed to say. _Right now, I'm on the painful end of the spectrum. _"Ah—well, nothing like what the papers say, I can assure you of that," he said. The _Prophet_ was forever making up tempestuous love affairs for the both of them, and trips to the Continent that somehow managed to last a month and a day simultaneously.

Blackthorn laughed, a sound like a shower of ice crystals. "No, it would not be. But that tells me only what it is not, not what it _is._"

_Damn._ Draco managed to keep his face smooth, which was more than Granger had done when he had taken _her_ by surprise. Why couldn't Harry see that some forms of superiority were just inherent?

"It's like—forgive me for using another lunar metaphor," he said, while his eyes sought out Harry again. He was talking earnestly with that half-blood nephew of a relative of Pansy's. Edward? Was that his name? Draco couldn't remember. "But it's like knowing you're the earth and having to spin around the moon anyway."

Blackthorn laughed again. "You _do _have a turn for colorful language, Mr. Malfoy," she said. "Mr. Potter was just telling me about that."

Draco shot her a sharp glance. She looked calmly back at him, but her gray eyes, carefully hidden from any observers because of the angle of her head, shone with a lascivious glow that no woman above sixty had any right showing.

His worry about what Harry had planned rose to a pitch that made him vibrate with anxiety.

"Er." He took a step away from Lady Blackthorn. "Pardon me, but I'm afraid that nature calls even in the middle of fine artificiality."

"Do hurry," Blackthorn said amiably to his back. "I would hate for you to miss the music I've arranged. Mr. Potter has been telling me something of your ability to dance, too."

Draco held all sound in until he was in one of the corridors of Blackthorn Manor adjacent to the main three rooms the party spilled through. Then he leaned against the wall and released a laugh that would have continued spiraling up the scale towards hysteria if he hadn't managed to clamp his lips shut around it.

_Harry, what the fuck do you think you're doing?_

It wasn't enough that he was being tormented for something completely _understandable_. Harry had brought their hostess in on it, too. What else would her cryptic hints mean?

So what if he had called Granger "Mudblood" last night, and done it again when the Weasel demanded an apology from him? And so what if it had been in the context of, "Don't touch me, Mudblood," as she handed a plate of fruit to him and their fingers had touched? The plate had fallen and fruit had splattered across the tablecloth, but the house-elves could easily clean that up. And then Granger had shrieked about the presence of elves in their home, which Harry evidently hadn't informed her of, and Draco had laughed and informed her that was just the sort of thing a low-bred Mudblood _would_ say. He had looked at Harry and surprised laughter lurking in those green eyes. He _knew_ he had. Wasn't the greatest sign of that the fact that, although Harry had apologized profusely to Granger before she left, he hadn't punished Draco?

Now Draco knew why he hadn't. He had been saving the punishment for this party. It was sure to be some awful public humiliation.

And it was so _unfair._ Draco was a Malfoy and a pure-blood, and expecting him to be courteous to someone like Granger was like asking a swan to fly in company with a starling.

A hand grabbed the back of his neck and spun him around, at the same moment as insistent lips crushed his. Draco gasped, and his assailant took the moment to probe his tongue into Draco's mouth.

This was Harry; the taste proclaimed it. And so did the way the hands pulled him closer immediately, for a bruising collision of groins and knees and hipbones. No one but Harry had any _reason_ to desire Draco that way.

Draco moaned softly, the only sign of it the vibration in his throat; he couldn't make an actual sound with that mouth devouring him. He pressed closer instead, tilting his head back so that he could feel even more securely held and imprisoned. Harry's fingers were yanking on his hair to the point where it sent small, delicious pulses of pain down to his cock. Draco had to breathe through his nose as a leg kicked his apart and rubbed harshly against his erection. He knew that Harry would have cast charms to make this as private as possible, but he was still stunned by the ferocity of the attack.

Then a thought came to him that soothed him and explained _everything_, both at once. Harry must have forgiven him. The sight of Draco in dress robes was plainly too much for him. He had decided on a reward instead of a punishment. Draco twined his arms around Harry's neck and moaned, this time aloud, because Harry had pulled away enough to start unbuttoning Draco's robes and the trousers he wore beneath them.

Draco felt himself being turned so that his back was more firmly against the wall. That leg hadn't ceased to rub, and he wondered for a hazy moment how Harry was managing to work his fingers past his knee. He opened his eyes so he could look down.

Only to realize that the turning motion and the way Harry had positioned his body had exposed Draco to the room beyond, with a number of curious party attendees staring directly at him. And that Harry had evidently neglected to put up privacy or silencing charms after all.

Draco could feel his stomach turning cold again and his cheeks flushing brilliantly at the stares—some lustful, some impudent, some disapproving. He ducked his head, trying to hide in Harry's shoulder, and then realized miserably that there was no one here stupid enough to fall for that trick, not in a pure-blood manor house. Even if they hadn't seen his face yet, his hair would have given him away.

Embarrassment and guilt raced through him like fireworks. He knew perfectly well that this would never have happened if he hadn't called Granger that name. Would it have been _so _hard for him to be courteous? He'd been praising himself for his naturalness, but he'd also prided himself in the past on how polite he could be even to people he detested. He had to do it every day at work.

Harry had buttoned him back up again. His stance had shifted, so that he was holding Draco protectively, but the strength in his arms was undeniable. He was also keeping Draco from retreat.

Into the silence intruded the sound of a single pair of clapping hands.

Draco jerked his head up and stared. Diana Blackthorn walked towards them, still applauding and shaking her head. In one hand waved a scrap of paper. Draco frowned at it, wondering what it was.

"I didn't think you would actually have the—fortitude—to do such a thing, Mr. Potter," she said, while her eyes slid in interest over Draco's blazing face. "Many would say that the Savior of the Wizarding World, who destroyed the Dark Lord intent on reestablishing pure-bloods as the power behind the Ministry, should have avoided entanglement with a pure-blood lover at all."

"I knew there would be political repercussions for my falling in love with Draco," Harry said, his voice resonant. He shifted again, and this time Draco could read the way he was embraced as sheerly protective. "That doesn't mean I've ever regretted it. They can't _make _me. Draco has many faults, but I've seen that he's capable of love and devotion." He shot Draco a sly look that brought back the blush as fast as it had started to vanish. "Even devotion to the brink of oblivion. Wouldn't you cherish that?"

Draco's heart started to beat hard again. So, all right, he had been publicly humiliated, but then also publicly claimed by the same Savior everyone had said should stay away from him. It was an honoring and a defiance of Mudblood opinion at the same time.

Contradictory, like most of the things Harry did.

Draco laid his head on Harry's shoulder.

"I did promise a reward for courage," Lady Blackthorn said softly. "And here you are." She extended the slip of paper to Harry. "This is a draft on my Gringotts vault for ten thousand Galleons. You'll find that more than enough money to help establish a few of your schools, I suspect." Her eyes shot arrows of delight at Draco. "If not quite enough to repay my enjoyment at the spectacle."

Harry took the paper neatly and bowed. "Thank you, my lady," he said. And he Apparated out from Blackthorn Manor with Draco in his arms.

* * *

Draco didn't speak until they were in the middle of their bedroom and Harry was stripping him with feverish speed, asking softly between kisses, "You understand why I did that? You forgive me?" 

"I do," Draco said, determined to be magnanimous, and not sure that he could have separated his embarrassment from his smugness at the public demonstration of love anyway.

"And are you _ever _going to call Hermione that word again?" Harry murmured into his ear as he laid Draco on the bed.

Draco shuddered, and not just because Harry's fingers were crawling up his ribs as lightly as the touch of silk garments. "God, no."

"If I knew that it only took saying I loved you to other people to teach you that lesson," Harry breathed, "I would have done it _much_ earlier."

And then he fell on top of Draco in more than one sense of the word, thankfully banishing all mention of Granger from their bed.

* * *

Draco was exquisitely polite to Granger when he met her next. He wasn't sure what was best: the astonished stare she fixed on him, the way the Weasel kept obviously, and pathetically, waiting for him to reverse his behavior, or the proud look Harry gave him from a corner of one eye. 

Draco tilted his head so that his throat was "accidentally" bared. Harry's gaze changed. Draco concealed a smile Granger would probably take as sarcastic.

Oh, yes, he_ did_ know what was best.


End file.
